This invention relates to a method for setting conditions in photographic printing.
The conditions for developing and printing of a negative film and development of photographic paper should be optimally controlled in order to produce color prints of high quality. In the majority of photographic printing systems currently used, a reference negative film (a negative film having an average density of users) is usually used as a reference to control the printing conditions so that printing is performed at a predetermined density. The reference negative film is used to optimize the relationship between a photographic printer and a photographic paper development, and is widely used as a method for correcting undesirable effects caused in developing and controlling a large number of negative films at an average density. Such control can also be achieved by using photometric values of a negative film in printing. However, this method involves troublesome work in preparing reference films. Furthermore, since reference films are usually supplied to a development laboratory in the state already developed under standardized conditions, particular negative characteristics or the minute differences unique to a particular laboratory are not taken into account in preparation. Moreover, since such reference negative films do not include differences in region, climate and season nor consider color fading or quality fluctuations of the reference films per se, they are not able to indicate optimal printing conditions for development laboratories. As long as a reference negative film is used, all of the work for setting and controlling printing conditions have to be done manually. Since the manual work is often conducted without much care, films are printed frequently under inappropriate printing conditions.